A place to discuss the weekly Wall Street Journal Crossword Puzzle Contest, starting every Thursday around 4:00 p.m. Eastern time. Please do not post any answers or hints before the contest deadline which is midnight Sunday Eastern time.
Tom Shea wrote: Sun Nov 26, 2023 11:33 am
Count me on the ship with Isaac.
Enjoying (well if I were a masochist) the weekend rebuilding my LAN. New faster equipment, but it means restoring every device that had a static IP (10 of them, that need to be configured at the device, which is a fun (-not!) location in some cases).
My reward will be totally getting rid of Comcrap/xfinity (motto: our customer service is so bad, we had to change our name) in the spring.
@Tom Shea Find me a cable company that has a high approval rating and I will find you a unicorn - equally likelihood for both.
I am actually quite happy with my fios in VT. It's Fidium, which is a forced divestiture from Verizon when they bought back Cingular a few years ago -- northern New England and a few other states. Not exactly cable, but fast internet that I can use to stream. $80 for 1Gig internet and a phone line.
My network reconstruction is in anticipation of getting here in NH next spring.
The fios installers in VT were from Sacramento and Waianae (western Oahu). Crazy world.
Appropriately named, Mr. Shenk’s “Black Friday” puzzle was a tougher than usual bird to feast upon over the weekend.
The first step was noticing the grid was asymmetrical and identifying the three black squares that were the cause of it all.
Step two: Replace those squares, rebus-style, with the letters FRI, thus creating six new words, three across and three down: FRITOS & FRIARIES, FRIGATE & FRISKY, and FRIENDLESS & FRIABLE.
Finally (and not so strangely enough) those words were also defined by six puzzle clues. The first letters of the original entries to those clues, in order, spelled out the meta: P-L-A-C-I-D.
There was considerable nibbling at the edges of rabbit holes on this one, unsurprising considering the complexity of the solve.
A couple of honorable mentions are in order: Big Mac (Post #196) and otlaolap (Post #213).
Your Rabbit is proud to salute this week’s standout nominee: SHIWUTONG who let the chips fall where they may with this lovely bit of logic:
“I took a different path for my answer. I used the BLACK in the title to indicate the black squares had letters hidden within them. And I took the FRI in the title and 30 Across (Name in the Chips aisle) with the answer of LAYS to reference FRI-to-LAYS. Of course, it’s the holiday season and everyone likes to watch football and eat so I went with that. So from 3 Across DAxxTOS became DOritTOS. So the changed letter became A. My second observation was in 59 Across CHxENOS which became CHeETOS. So then the changed letter became the letter N. Then I saw 44 across with LxxxCRISPx which became RiceCRISPy so the changed letter became the letter L. Then 36 down was KYx which became KIx so the changed letter became Y. Then I saw 59 across with CHxE which became CHeX so the changed letter became E. So when I ran the six letters thru an Anagram solver I came up with SANELY. Which of course is an unlikely description of Black Friday shopping.”
All that gets your Rabbit in the mood for some post-Thanksgiving snacking, so he will close with a little Black Friday nostalgia from Saturday Night Live. Until next week, then --
Though I did not get there alone I am pleased I found the asymmetry and I owe that to this community. I have learned so much about crossword construction from so many of you. My heartfelt thanks. Now how one gets the idea to put FRI in those blacks...oh my my my my. So much more to learn.
The contest answer is PLACID. There are three black squares in the grid that are not symmetrically balanced. If they are replaced with FRI they make new words across and down that fit clues for other grid answers: FRISKY/PEPPY, FRITOS/LAYS, FRIARIES/ ABBEY, FRIABLE/CRISP, FRIGATE/ IRONCLAD, FRIENDLESS/DESTITUTE. The first letters of those other answers, in grid order, spell the contest answer.
How long was Mike keeping this ingenious puzzle up his sleeve, waiting for Black Friday? It was tougher than usual for our solvers: we had just 648 entries, though fully 78% of them were correct. Other guesses included (wishfully perhaps) EASY (15), EASY PEASY (11) and EASY AS PIE (3). Plus SPEND LESS (7), SPENT (2), ORDERLY (2), NO CROWDS (2) and a handful of others.
Congrats to this week's winner: Ann Brooks of Durham, N.C.!
